XANIMAL | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: I like that a lot. I didn't even want to talk over the end. Just let it fade out. That sounds so good. That is the Awakening and that is ex Animal And let me get this up here right now. Joining us via restream. We've got Noel Hampton and Claude McCann with us. Hello, good morning, Hey Hey, can you hear me? Yes, yes, I can hear you, Noel, Claude, can you can you hear us? Cloud Oh, we can't hear you.

0:25 Speaker 2: We can't hear you. Get Claude.

0:27 Speaker 1: I cannot hear Claude, but uh, Cloude will adjust his settings. I'm sure. Oh, there we go. I hear Claude, Claude. Can you hear us?

0:40 Speaker 3: Yeah, I can hear you.

0:41 Speaker 1: Oh, perfect, perfect, Well, yeah, welcome to the show.

0:43 Speaker 3: Yeah.

0:44 Speaker 1: I don't know if you could hear what I was saying, but I was saying, I love that track, The Awakening, and that is with that features. I don't know how to pronounce this, Nagavali nagavaliolly is that? Who does the vocal on that?

1:00 Speaker 4: So I do the the she does the more Indian traditional vocal, all the rest of it, Oh.

1:06 Speaker 1: The rest of it's okay, awesome. Yeah, oh beautiful, beautiful. Yeah, no, it sounds really good, really good. I love that song.

1:13 Speaker 2: So what thank you?

1:14 Speaker 1: So what what do what do each of you do? So, Noel, I assume do you do most of the vocals on on all the X Animal stuff for Yeah, we're actually called Oh I apologize now, I know why you were chuckling.

1:33 Speaker 2: Oh I I kind of like it ex Animal.

1:36 Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's animal, Okay, all right, yeah.

1:40 Speaker 4: It's animal, you know what, it's teach their own also, let even think of it what they want to think of it. Sure, sure, yeah, so I because we've only been this is our second track together and Claude. Claude and Ken are the producers on this particular project. Okay, I do have some some production in but in my own project, I'm a I'm a producer. But with this, with these guys, it's kind of fun to just let them have that, have at it, and then they send me a track and then I get to do more of the melody, vocal lyric kind of a thing with this project.

2:12 Speaker 2: So it's really fun for me.

2:14 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, and then so so it's kind of a well, Claude, how would how would you describe his Animal. I mean, it sounds like it's kind of a collective thing, but how do you describe the project.

2:28 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a collective electronic music project. But you know, and also we try tovolve, you know, involve other people in the in our Austin music scene here. You know, there's there's another Ken Christiansen who's who's part of his animal, and he had some other things going on during this. So yeah, this was me and and Noel, you know, and I'm kind of the synth man and and programming and stuff like that.

3:00 Speaker 4: Okay, he's modest, he's kind of a he's kind of.

3:05 Speaker 2: A synth wizard.

3:06 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, Yeah, so.

3:09 Speaker 4: We had done I don't know if you had heard our first track called love acxis.

3:13 Speaker 1: And not only have I heard it, I intend to play it at the end of our conversation because that's another great track. I love it. Yeah.

3:20 Speaker 4: That's kind of how this thing started, was that they had this track for love Access and they were like, maybe we should get you know, our friend Noel to like, actually Ken had never even heard of me, but Cloude and I have known each other for years, and they're like, maybe we should get Noel to sing on this, you know, let's see what we could do as a collaboration. And when we went in on that track, it was just like such a vibe and we just had so much fun and it was really easy, and we were like, maybe we should do more like this.

3:48 Speaker 4: So their thing kind of became our thing in a way, so it sort of turned into his animal. But yeah, then we were sort of talking in the beginning about what it should be like, and it was like, well, we all bands like Massive Attack, Thievery Corporation, you know, that kind of thing, zero seven, all those things that had like multiple people come in and h and join them, and so all since the beginning, specifically, I have had in my head to use Knagavalli on a track, and just the times we're in you know, like we we have another dance track that we're kind of getting ready to to to work on here that's almost done.

4:29 Speaker 2: But I just felt like, man, my spirit is a.

4:33 Speaker 1: Little broken right now, understand, and I.

4:36 Speaker 4: Just felt like I needed I needed, like to work on a track with a little more kind of spiritual like, you know, vibe, a little more like what's happening now with people, you know, and Claude just nailed it, like just like, yeah, what he delivered was exactly what I wanted to work on.

4:54 Speaker 1: So now that makes sense. You know, the press material mentions themes of you know, hope and transcendence and emotion release, and I do think it really comes through in a track like the Awakening. I mean, that's that's what I got from it, you know, just listening into the track before I'd even read anything about the project and what you're doing with it. Are you? Are you both in Austin, Texas? Okay? Great, great sun?

5:20 Speaker 4: All three all three of us, all three of us in Xanimal and Knackavali, we all live in Austin.

5:25 Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, Yeah, I mean I'm not surprised, you know, to hear something interesting like this project to come out of there, because there's such a scene there. There's so many we've we've actually over the years, we've had a lot of artists from that area, uh specifically on the show, and there's this so much great I mean, do you think do you think it's helpful being in a place like Austin, Texas where you're surrounded by by so many creative people versus if you were in a place where maybe there just wasn't a lot happening musically, I mean, or or maybe not.

5:56 Speaker 1: I mean, maybe you'd be creating this music no matter where you lived. But but I I feel like I feel like in Austin, Texas, you're just surrounded by so much creativity that it would be really inspiring.

6:08 Speaker 2: It's it's unbelievable, honestly.

6:10 Speaker 3: Like and also the scene is very it's just real supportive. Yeah, you know, likes diferent competition, but it's it's it's really like everybody in all the different genres is really supportive, and.

6:29 Speaker 2: We all collaborate a lot.

6:30 Speaker 4: Like we all do shows together with like, you know, different kinds of acts on the same bill. There's like, you know, a deep Americana scene here, there's a there's a cool like indie electro and rock and roll scene. There's like punk rock. It's but everyone kind of knows each other. I mean a lot of people do, and we all see each other a lot at different events, and so we've definitely have Like I lived in you know, I came up in the San Francisco Bay area.

6:58 Speaker 2: I lived in l A for a while.

7:00 Speaker 4: I've just never seen a music community I mean, we had a good community in the Bay Area, but it was so spread apart. You know, it's like East Bay, South Bay, and it's just hard to kind of get to each other's gigs. But in Austin, we are like five minutes, ten minutes away from somebody's show at any given moment. So it makes us a tighter community. You know.

7:18 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fantastic. So what's kind of the Obviously you've got you know, the Awakening and you know later, well we'll play love Access. But are you are you continuing to make music together now as as animal? Is this going to be? I mean, what's kind of the long term plan? Are you going to do an EP? Are you going to do an album where you're going to keep doing singles? I mean I assume you're going to continue to work together.

7:40 Speaker 3: Yeah, what are we doing that as single and then think about doing the stuff?

7:45 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's it's more like the adulting of life that it gets in the way. Oh yeah, we all have like different projects that we do, you know, like I have a band called The Bell Sounds that I'm you know, the lead everything on, producer, writer, and uh, it's like a synthpop band in Austin.

8:06 Speaker 2: Claude has like five bands Claude.

8:09 Speaker 1: Oh really yeah, yeah, that's good.

8:13 Speaker 2: So this is a fun thing. But we we definitely want to make more music together.

8:17 Speaker 4: It's just a matter of finding a minute to get together, right, right.

8:22 Speaker 1: So what is the creative process like in a in a project like this, I mean, who who kind of comes up with the uh you know on these like on these two songs that we're playing today, Like, you know, how did how did these come about? What's the process and maybe maybe the two songs had to distinctly different processes. I don't know, but I'm curious about how that works.

8:42 Speaker 3: Well, it's will get basically, get a musical track together and in love access It was Ken and I that did it, and we'll and you'll send it to Noel. Of course she'll come in, but lots of times she actually we just send it to her and she sings it at her own studio. Yeah and back. So but when we go back and we talk about a concept, you know what are concept is going to be?

9:12 Speaker 4: Yeah, like lyrically we have a we have an idea of kind of going in or like a vibe going in, So that I have something to kind of bounce off of. But like I said, this is fun for me because normally I'm the one that in my band that makes all the music and I sit here for hours nerding out. But this time I just get like some beautiful, amazing thing just delivered to me, and I go.

9:33 Speaker 2: Oh cool, Yeah, this is fun. It's the whole new reality for me.

9:38 Speaker 1: Yeah.

9:38 Speaker 4: But yeah, we we definitely are like collaborative and stuff. We were kind of hoping that Ken would have time to because he's a great DJ, and we were hoping that he would have time to do like a really cool remix of this song of the Awakening, So we're hanging at some point he can do that. Claude is also working on a remix of the Awakening and for our last track, we got how many like different DJs, like four or five did.

10:03 Speaker 2: Remixes of Access. Yeah, so we're kind of putting that out too.

10:08 Speaker 1: So I'm really curious about that because that's interesting. I was looking at your band camp and I saw that love Access. Yeah it's got multiple different remix I mean, how cool is that when when you've done something that that other people wanted them take and and and put their own stamp on and remix it. I mean that's got to be really gratifying, right, Yeah, yes, you.

10:29 Speaker 3: Know, and you can hear different areas. I mean we our stuff has put out myself and can't have a label called new music new human music. Okay, we have some on it, but his animal is part is part of that is one of our main things.

10:45 Speaker 1: Yeah, on that label.

10:47 Speaker 3: And we kind of the DJs. We kind of have a DJ side to it. And he knows a lot of a lot of people who do that kind of production and remixes.

10:55 Speaker 4: So okay, Yeah, he came up in that world and like has toured all over the world doing that kind of thing. So he's made a lot, made a lot of friends and connections.

11:05 Speaker 2: He still does it.

11:06 Speaker 4: I think he's maybe he's even out there right now. I'm not sure, but he's one of those guys that has like hands and a million different pots. I don't know how he keeps up with it, honestly, but but yeah, it's been for It's really fun for me because I've never had anybody do that with anything that I've produced or created, So for me, it was a new experience and it was like wow, like just to hear what part of the song they would choose, or what part of my vocal or if they even use my vocal.

11:34 Speaker 2: At all or whatever, you know.

11:37 Speaker 4: And when we did this song, when we did The Awakening, I thought, I thought it would be really interesting to see, like I could imagine some people remixing the song without ever using any of mine and just using Naga Vali because she's so magical, you know. I think it could be a really cool like world you know, kind of edim situation or something. But yeah, hopefully we can get some people to remix it.

11:58 Speaker 2: That'd be fun.

11:59 Speaker 1: Now do these songs get at any point? Do they get performed live? I would imagine that would be a challenge maybe to pull that together, But I don't know.

12:11 Speaker 2: I would love to, but I guess we need a little bit more material.

12:14 Speaker 3: Yeah, But also I've been trying to think of how we can you know, how we can do it. Uh, there's a there's a way, but we're getting to that.

12:26 Speaker 4: Yeah, I think we could probably do it in a sense of like if we're doing if they're doing like a New Human showcase or something like that, we could probably get up there and do you know, like the couple tracks we have and just use tracks. If Nagavali's not there, we can use her track or whatever.

12:44 Speaker 1: You know.

12:44 Speaker 4: In my band, we perform with live musicians and track, so it's definitely possible to use things like that. But but Claude can play the sense live and stuff like that, So I think it would be really fun if we did that. We may maybe we don't need to wait until we have too much more to just kind of pop up and say here we are, this is what we do, right.

13:01 Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I can imagine how that would be a challenge. So what's so what is next for for his animal? What's what's kind of the next? Uh? I mean, do you have another single that you're working on? Now?

13:16 Speaker 3: We do?

13:16 Speaker 1: We do?

13:17 Speaker 4: They made this track that's like, it's so cool, Like I kind of describe it as like disco, like Prince type disco track.

13:26 Speaker 1: Oh, I'm intrigued.

13:27 Speaker 2: It's it's a jam.

13:29 Speaker 4: It's a it's a serious jam, and I'm just like trying my hardest to like find a way to live up to how cool this track is.

13:38 Speaker 2: My lyrics and melody.

13:41 Speaker 4: We'll figure it out, we'll figure it out. But it's just such a cool track, and I just want to make sure it's like, yeah, this is it. So but we're we're pretty we're pretty far along on that. We just have to kind of start putting all those pieces together and and then get that out and then you know, I don't know, it's it's just a matter of these guys continuing to get together and you know, make some make some music when they have some free time and send it over.

14:08 Speaker 1: Absolutely.

14:08 Speaker 3: I mean when you did when we did Love Access, we kind of had an idea that we would be

14:15 Speaker 3: like have eighties elements and that would kind of be our style. But we've kind of gone off that a little bit, but we still have that in there, but I mean it's not yeah. Yeah.

14:30 Speaker 4: I think also, like what we talked about in the beginning was like maybe that we didn't need to define this project as much because when you do your own projects, you get really like sucked into like genre based stuff where you're like I do this, I do that and stuff. So for us creatively, this is such a fun thing to be able to just go what are you feeling right now, what do you want to do? You know, and not have such constraints on this particular project. I think that would be really cool to not have to feel like we have to fit into some box.

15:05 Speaker 3: You know.

15:06 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think and I can say too just from my own experience as a musician, I think it's always more exciting when you don't think about what, you know, genre, something is supposed to be. You don't try to fit it into a box. You're just do what you think sounds good. You just make the music that you want to make without worrying about anything else. And I think that's the best way to do it. And that's how you get the most authentic sounding stuff at the end of the day, is just by doing what you want to do rather than worrying about, well, it's got to fit this, it's got to be able to be in this category, it's got to fit this format.

15:42 Speaker 1: We got to get it on this radio station, you know, whatever it is.

15:46 Speaker 3: Yeah, there's kind of a lot of pressure do one thing. So much in the business is organized towards.

15:55 Speaker 4: What do you do?

15:56 Speaker 3: Where can you put you?

15:57 Speaker 1: Yeah?

16:00 Speaker 2: I mean true, they want it. They want to put you in a in a box, right yeah.

16:04 Speaker 1: Yeah, And and part of that and and part of that is just you know, that's how you market things, and and so that that isn't necessary, you know. I'm I've I've lived on both sides of the business of you know, the business side and the creative side, and and and I But the way I've always thought of it is, you know, as far as the creating the art, whether it's music or any kind of art, just just make what you want to make. And then once that's done and you're happy with it, that's when you figure the other part out, you know, the how do you market it, how do you you know, where do you place it?

16:34 Speaker 1: On? All that, But that shouldn't even enter your mind until you're done creating whatever it is you're creating. Everything else can be figured out later.

16:44 Speaker 4: Yeah, because if you if that's the dream, isn't it.

16:47 Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I mean I think practically that's how you have to do it, because even if you're trying to figure out the other part while you're creating the music, you know, those other plans are gonna inevitably have to change anyway, So you might as well just not be thinking about that at all while you're creating, and then and then worry about the rest later, you know. And there's probably some very very successful people in the music industry who will tell me that everything I just said is wrong, and and they probably have platinum records and millions of dollars.

17:15 Speaker 1: So but so at the end of the day, what do I know. But that's how I think of it.

17:21 Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and there's just so many pressures. Things are not easy.

17:25 Speaker 4: It's it's a lot of pressure in every business right now, every everywhere, everyone's kind of dealing with a lot of like stress. So I think this for us just needs to feel like, you know, something that is just wow, it's exciting and happy and lovely when we get together and we make cool music and like that's literally that's enough. I mean, if people hear it, yay, if people love it yay. Yeah, I want people to hear it and love it and pass it on. But it really this particular project for me just needs to feel more about like creation joy, you know, because everything else is really hard and we all have our own projects that we're also in our own businesses and things that we do to make day daytime money, you know, right, so exactly, so it's hard, man, And so this is just like these guys are extremely creative.

18:17 Speaker 4: I have so much trust in their in their creative process, Like I would not just let them handmat track if I didn't trust what their aesthetic was, you know, And so it's super fun to just kind of see like what comes next. They actually sent me, like when we were doing Love Access, they sent me like five other track options or something, and all of them were super cool. So I don't even know what happened to those, Claude, what happened to those.

18:48 Speaker 1: It's a good problem to have, by the way, So I haven't asked the I haven't asked the most obvious question. Where does the name's animal come from? What does it mean?

19:02 Speaker 2: Cloth?

19:03 Speaker 3: It's just kind of a sixty eighties name.

19:06 Speaker 1: I don't Yeah, that's valid.

19:11 Speaker 4: Had we just made a big list of like, you know, kind of intriguing like sort of words that to me, it's sort of like we're we're all kind of one one type of being, even though we're all so different, and it sort of like puts us under this, like we're all animals, but maybe we're all just a little bit weird and different and strange. And to me, it's kind of like strange strange people, Like is animal kind of cool people?

19:39 Speaker 2: Strange people of music, you know what I mean.

19:41 Speaker 4: And so it's sort of like embodies like the humanness of just like you know, what is this tribe?

19:47 Speaker 2: It's like a tribe almost, you know.

19:49 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah I like that.

19:51 Speaker 2: Yeah.

19:51 Speaker 3: So yeah, and it's got some exotic exoticness to it.

19:57 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, Uh that makes sense.

20:01 Speaker 2: It looks cool.

20:02 Speaker 3: We haven't we haven't or anything like that.

20:06 Speaker 1: Right, gotcha understood, understood. So in a moment, we're gonna play uh, Love Access the original mix, and you know what, we'll we'll let you go in a minute and then we're going to hit that track. But uh, what what should we know about this? I mean you touched on it a little bit, but anything you want us to know about Love Access? Are there any other people who are on it that we should know about? Or anything about the production you want us to know?

20:37 Speaker 3: See, now, that was the three of us.

20:40 Speaker 2: That was just the three of us.

20:42 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean to me, it was like pretty obviously like leaning into uh, you know, dance disco, dancy eighties vibe, and so immediately my mind went to the club and like just that that moment when you're at a club and you kind of see that that person you get that vibe from somebody and all of a sudden sort of you know, if you meet them or you start dancing with them, and the world kind of just disappears around you almost and you know, maybe it's a one night thing. You never know, it's just like a big spark, and that kind of a thing is just sort of like tapping into that real intimate, special moment, but at a dance club essentially.

21:28 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, cool, I like that, So we'll play that. We'll play that in a moment, and then later on the show a five times. I might even play one of the remixes, because I personally I love remixes, but also too before we let you go, where where's the best place to go online to keep up with everything that X Animal is doing? And of course, uh we should mention two new human records if you want to. I'm looking at the band campage for that. There's there's some some stuff on there. But where where should people go to keep up with is Animal?

21:59 Speaker 3: There's an human music dot com.

22:03 Speaker 4: Okay, and we also have we have Instagram, and we have Instagram under under his Animal, but we don't quite yet have TikTok. But I have a TikTok under the bell sounds and stuff. But we will eventually get that. It's just another thing to manage. But I do have Insta and uh and and uh Facebook right now?

22:23 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, fantastic Well.

22:25 Speaker 2: And obviously on all streaming platforms too.

22:28 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely that's essential. Yeah. Well, Claude and Noel, thank you both for joining us today. By the way, I'm just curious, is it like super hot where you guys are in Austin, Texas? Is it triple digits?

22:40 Speaker 4: Honestly, we've we've had a like the mildest summer yet it we've had one day where it hit one hundred all the way up until today. Well not today, it's going to hit one under next next week, I think. But that's like unheard of for us to have through July where it's it's still in the eighties nineties.

22:58 Speaker 1: Wow, And I don't.

23:00 Speaker 3: I don't know if you wed July. It's crazy.

23:05 Speaker 4: Yeah, we had like flooding in the Hill country oh wow, and like they did like it did last year.

23:10 Speaker 1: So oh.

23:10 Speaker 4: But it's interesting because you look at like East Coast and you guys, everyone's been like one hundred and ten and stuff.

23:16 Speaker 2: That's our normal vibe.

23:18 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we've we've had it easy.

23:21 Speaker 1: Yeah, no, good, that's that's good. I'm glad for you. Yeah, it has been hot here. Fortunately, I don't mind the heat, so I'm I'm good. I would, uh, I would. You're lucky, Max, I am lucky. I don't. I don't mind it at all. But I wish it was a dryer heat. But even the humidity doesn't bother me that much. But no, I was just curious.

23:39 Speaker 2: We're loving life right now down here.

23:41 Speaker 1: No, that's good, that's excellent, excellent, all right, so we're going to hit this track love Axis again a Claude and Noel, thank you both for joining us today. This has been wonderful and we'll definitely do it again in the future. As you release it, sounds like you've got a lot of stuff coming up, so we'll uh, we'll have you back in the future.

23:56 Speaker 2: I'm sure we'd love to do that.

23:58 Speaker 1: Thank you, Matt, count on it all right, all right, thank you both, take care, have a good day, all right, bye, bye, all right, very good. That is Claude and Noel. The project is animal now I know how to say it correctly, and let's hit this This is another great track. This is called Love Access from Xanimal